Hello, friends! Now you can datamosh from the command line on Windows! (or you can drag and drop a video file on top of datamosh.bat in the file explorer window)
What's a datamosh? Here's an example made by someone who wasn't me!
The mosh works out of the box and produces videos ready for social media sites like Twitter but I left extensive notes in the program to help you adjust settings and understand what's happening.
How to run the program after it's downloaded:
- Unzip you-can-datamosh-on-windows-master.zip then the files inside: ffmpeg.zip and python-3.6.0.zip
- make sure the Python folder is named python-3.6.0 and that python.exe and a bunch of other files are in the main python-3.6.0 folder.
- ffmpeg.exe should be in the
you-can-datamosh-on-windows-masterfolder
There are two ways to run the datamoshing program:
- If you have Python 3.6 installed and know how to use it run:
do_the_mosh_win.py [video file name]
(Other versions of Python might work but I've only tested this with Python 3.6)
or:
-
press the Windows button and type
cmdto open the command prompt and go to theyou-can-datamosh-on-windows-masterfolder. This page has information on how to find files fromcmdhttp://www.dummies.com/computers/operating-systems/windows-xp-vista/how-to-search-for-files-from-the-dos-command-prompt/ -
Then run this command:
datamosh.bat [video file name]
which is a convenient way of running this command:
python-3.6.0\python.exe do_the_mosh_win.py [video file name]
You can also drag and drop the video on top of datamosh.bat in the file explorer window and it will run the file. (However, if you just click on datamosh.bat in the file explorer window no moshing will occur. Instead you'll see a little white screen flash by.)
The datamoshed video will be in a new folder: moshed_videos\
If you get a system can not find file error at the command line it usually means you forgot to unzip the files or put them in the right folder which is totally okay and nothing to feel bad about. (I forgot like 3 times while testing the code.)
You can most easily reach me on twitter. I am @happyhorseskull there as well.
Good luck, friends!
Editing Python files is easy with a simple code editor like Notepad++ https://notepad-plus-plus.org/
If your code editing session gets wild and you're not sure how to fix do_the_mosh_win.py you can always re-download the code from here.
Here are the really important variables in do_the_mosh_win.py for changing the video it creates:
start_sec = 3 Time the effect starts on the original video's timeline. The final video can be much longer.
end_sec = 6 Time the effect ends on the original video's timeline.
output_length = 60 How long the final video will be in seconds
repeat_p_frames = 15 How many times a p-frame is repeated during the datamosh
ffmpeg makes it super easy to trim a video:
ffmpeg.exe -i [original video file name].mp4 -ss 30 -t 10 [new video file name].mp4
-ss says to start copying the original video at 0:30 seconds and -t is how many seconds long the video will be which means the new shorter video is a copy of 0:30..0:40 of the original video.
Okay so MP4 files are fun and good but what about GIFs? That is not a problem with ffmpeg.exe.
ffmpeg.exe -v error -i [video file name].mp4 [gif file name].gif
However the GIFs from that are kinda not that great so I adapted the information from http://blog.pkh.me/p/21-high-quality-gif-with-ffmpeg.html and made video_to_gif.bat for your high-quality GIF convenience! The command to use it is:
video_to_gif.bat [video file name]
or you can drop the video on the video_to_gif.bat in the file explorer window. Your new GIF will be in the GIFs folder as [original video file name].gif The GIF will only be datamoshed if you convert a datamoshed video. video_to_gif.bat will work with all sorts of regular, boring videos.
The current settings in video_to_gif.bat will copy the first 10 seconds of the video to the GIF. But it it easy to change that. You can either:
- run the file from the command line and specify the start time and end time:
video_to_gif.bat [video file name] 10 20which will start at the 10th second and end on the 20th second.
or:
- you can edit
video_to_gif.batand change thestart_gifandend_gifvariables to be whichever default values you prefer.
GIFs can become suprisingly large files. If you need to make a GIF file size smaller you can make the GIF length shorter or you can edit some variables in video_to_gif.py
fps is frames per second. A lower fps will create smaller files.
gif_width sets how wide the GIF is. The height will scale to match. A narrower width GIF will have a smaller file size.
Warning: video_to_gif.bat will overwrite previous GIFs made from the same video file if you leave them in the GIFs directory.
Where did those .exe files come from?? I WILL TELL YOU BECAUSE WE ARE FRIENDS AND I WANT YOU TO FEEL SAFE.
-ffmpeg.exe is the 32-bit, 3.2.2 build from here: https://ffmpeg.zeranoe.com/builds/
-Python 3.6.0 is the Windows x86 embeddable zip file from here: https://www.python.org/downloads/release/python-360/
-youtube-dl.exe is the Windows executable from here: https://rg3.github.io/youtube-dl/
Note: youtube-dl.exe will be out of date by the time you get this and you'll want to update it with the command:
youtube-dl.exe --update
We just met so I completely understand if you don't totally trust me and want to go to those sites and download the files yourself. Really I just included them for your conveinence. No big deal. My feelings are fine..no just go do it..go..I'll wait here.
Got 'em? Great. Bat files are real picky about file names so you'll want to make sure a few details are correct. The Python folder should be named python-3.6.0 and contain python.exe with a bunch of other files in the main python-3.6.0 folder. ffmpeg.exe should be in the you-can-datamosh-on-windows-master folder. youtube-dl.exe can go in whichever folder you prefer or on your desktop or whatever.
I didn't want to zip ffmpeg.exe but the file size is 37 MB and github has a 25 MB file size limit. Embeddable Python was included because the usual route for this sort of thing involves editing the Windows path variable. I've never enjoyed doing or explaining how to edit the path variable so I included Python as a convenint shortcut for both of us.
Need videos to mosh? I've included youtube-dl.exe to help you out! Downloading youtube videos is as simple as:
youtube-dl.exe --format 18 [youtube video url] -o youtube_video.mp4
But wait, there's more: youtube-dl.exe works with lots of other sites like vimeo and can grab most twitter videos. To discover if a site is supported try:
youtube-dl.exe --list-formats [website url]
which will show a list of available formats for the video on the page.
NOTE: If youtube-dl fails to download youtube videos try it on another site before deciding youtube-dl is broken. Sometimes youtube makes changes to its video player and it takes the youtube-dl team a few days to catch up.